In Hindsight
by The Uninspired
Summary: A look back. Enclosed is a series of one-shots meant to elaborate on things we never had explained or shown. Each chapter gets a different point of view. Spoilers are inevitable. (Also on psychfic!) Current: The O'Hara legacy gets a little shaky.
1. Karen I

**a/n:** so this is posted on psychfic, but i like to have more of an audience, so it's going here too. basically, i have a lot of headcanons about this silly show and a lot of them will be written out and put on this handy website. it'll mostly be explanations of stuff that happened or missing scenes, so some will be in the past and others will be set in-series, but for right now i don't think any will be post-series. i can't guarantee these one-shots will be fantastic, but this series is becoming my new brainchild.

a disclaimer to count for the whole story: i don't own psych and don't plan to with this fic.

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**KAREN I**

_He's too pale for this job_, Karen thinks, and it's her first thought about him.

The man that swings down from the lifeguard post is lanky and lean, his sun-dyed hair a mess atop his head. As he approaches, she sees that beneath his visor his skin is red and peeling, covering a mass of freckles. Despite all this, the areas of his face that are _not_ sunburned are still pale, contrasting with the dark brown of his shoulders (that, she sees, have just recently finished peeling, based on the loose skin still on his neck). She finds trouble meeting his eyes.

"Hello, officer," he greets, his teeth flashing white as he bares them in a crooked smile. "How can I help you?"

He's so much taller than her that she has to look up at him, and he's standing in just the right position to make the sun bore into her eyes. She takes a step to the side so his head casts a shadow and scowls at his chuckling face. "Sergeant Dunlap, SBPD," she introduces herself, ignoring his offered hand. "We got a call about some suspicious lurkers down here?"

"Ah, of course. It's a long story, Sergeant."

"Well, make it snappy," she urges. "I've got a few other stops on my shift."

He brushes off her callous demeanor with another of his sideways smiles, and she resists the urge to roll her eyes. "I'll see what I can do. I was at my desk job going through a case one morning when my coworker called about some suspicious guy lurking around, but I told him not to think anything of it. I was on duty the next day and saw someone like he'd described wandering near the beachfront, and I noticed it was around the same time my buddy called me the day before. So we kept some tabs out, got some of the other lifeguards in on it, and we realized that someone's been showing up every day for the past few days at the same time to watch."

The man shrugs, and Karen frowns, pondering his story. _Desk job_ is the thing she finds most odd about this story, because this man doesn't look like he could be out of high school despite the ginger stubble on his defined jaw, and _case_ makes her think he's a detective or a lawyer or something. She shakes her head, getting her attention back on the case. "Right. Lurker shows up same time every day. Did he do anything?"

"Well, no," he admits, scratching the back of his neck. "But I realized that I recognized the guy from the warnings out about the suspect who snatched that girl a few weeks back."

Karen's gut tightens. "Go on."

"I called the police department after four days, and, well, here you are." He gestures at her and, again, smiles. She's beginning to think that's his automatic response to everything. "I think the squad car might scare him away, though."

On instinct, she glances back at her cruiser, which is in desperate need of a wash after a pursuit on a dirt road. It would definitely scare away a kidnapper, she admits to herself. "What would you suggest then?"

He shrugs. "I can't tell you what to do, miss."

"_Sergeant_," she corrects, and he ignores her.

"I'd talk to your boss about it, maybe come down here incognito?" He shrugs again. "That's just what I'd recommend."

She hesitates, but reaches for her radio. Before she calls this in, she gives him a wary glance. "Would you be here tomorrow?"

The man laughs, and when he moves, the sun slides past him, getting in her eyes. She's glaring at him, barely able to see. "Yes, I will, Sergeant," he informs her. "And if you'll stop by again, that'd be lovely. It's the only other day my firm gives me off. Pearson-Specter, up in Goleta. They run a tight ship up there and I'm glad they let me keep this job."

"You work for a law firm?" The disbelief in her voice is evident, and she sheepishly clears her throat. "I mean, why do you keep working here?"

He kicks a rock at his feet with a sandaled foot. "I love the beach, really. And the kids. They're so good to me here, it'd be so hard to leave." And this time, when he smiles at her, she thinks it's genuine for the first time. "And it sorta helps to pay for my master's. That too."

They just look at each other for a while, Karen's hand still on her radio, his thumbs hooked into the elastic band on his trunks. Karen eventually clears her throat, taking the radio from its holster. "I'll call this in. It's a lot more serious than we think, apparently. I'll see you around."

It isn't until she's back at the department that she realizes she never got his name.

The next day, she pulls up to the beachfront in a department-loaned silver sedan. She's in her civvies, but her firearm and badge are in her purse. She takes care to park the car in the shade, away from the other undercover officers who would be with her.

Hair braided over one shoulder, she steps into the sand feeling anxious. Karen knocks on the wood of the lifeguard stand, and the familiar face of the lifeguard whips around, his nose still peeling, his smile still crooked.

"Hey! You made it!" He moves down a few steps and leans into the sun.

"I'm just here on patrol," she says smoothly, and he still offers his hand to her.

"Come on up, then." He gestures with his fingers. "It's cooler up here, and you'll see more."

In the sun, his eyes light up amber and she can see how his hair has been bleached over the summer by the sunlight. She looks into his eyes rather than at his sunburn, but still doesn't reach for his hand.

"Sorry, but I don't think I ever got your name."

He smiles, and she knows when he's older he's going to have smile lines everywhere. "Richard Vick, future lawyer," he says finally. "You can call me anything except Dick."

She takes his hand and helps her up the steps, and she realizes that she's smiling, too.


	2. Hank

**HANK**

He doesn't go into the city much because it's so unfamiliar. There are other, smaller towns closer to Old Senora that he frequents much more often, but they don't ever prepare him for Santa Barbara. The click of his boots on the clay tile is somehow different and startling, and the smell of the sea reaches him from everywhere. He's just shaking the taste of the air from his mouth when he approaches the café.

The woman for whom he's looking is sitting there, flipping through the pages of a binder and occasionally making a note in it with her pen. Hank can see that she's passed on some traits to her son, though not many - the striking cheek bones, slim frame, and the curve of his nose are hers, but that's where the similarities stop. This woman has auburn hair, streaked with gray, as opposed to her son's chestnut hair that grows darker by the day. Her eyes are round, the color of the sea after a storm; his are almond-shaped, the color of freshwater rapids. But when she looks up, he can see that they have the same haunted look that bores right into him, and it sends a jolt down his spine. Hank looks down, taking off his hat.

"Mrs. Lassiter, right?" he greets, and she narrows her eyes are him warily.

"That'd be me," she answers cautiously. "Do I know you?"

"Hank Mendel, director of activities up at Old Senora," he introduces. He's met her before, but clearly he's just a face that she didn't deem important enough to remember. She coldly ignores his offered hand, and with some chagrin, he shoves it back in his pocket, rocking on his heels. Still, there's a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "I just wanted to talk to you about your son."

Her eyes flash dangerously; Hank's first instinct is to take a step back. "What about my son?" She slowly closes her binder. Hank is reminded of a cat preparing to strike. "Is he alright?"

"Oh, he's doing fine, ma'am," he corrects quickly. "He's just been a little...reserved."

"Well, he's always been like that." There's a tone of defensiveness to her voice, a steely note that makes him freeze up. Hank often forgets that he's not a parent, and remembers full force that Mrs. Lassiter is; she sits up straight and holds him in place with a sharp stare. "There's nothing _wrong_ with Carlton, Mr. Mendel."

"I wasn't claiming that. He's just seemed more down than usual recently, and I..." He licks his lips in an attempt to return some moisture to his mouth. "I wanted to ask you if he could stay up with me for a little longer than a weekend. Maybe a week or two this summer, just to get some color back in him."

And Carlton desperately needs it - he's 10 years old and he spends all his time cooped up inside reading. Hank can appreciate a well-read kid, but when he was 10, he was riding horses and spending as much time as possible outside. He understood that Carlton burned easily and didn't know how to ride a horse, but he thought it was _odd_ that this young boy had such an interest in what Hank did and still spent days upon days inside the house. Hank, being unmarried, wanted to teach him, even raise him a little. Carlton seriously admired him - he could see it in the boy's eyes every time they had a conversation. It wasn't his place, he knew that, but Carlton had this way of looking so _sad_. And Hank, soft-hearted as he was, just wanted to help.

He can see Mrs. Lassiter turning it over in her head, her head tilted slightly in an expression he had seen many times before on her son's face. Her brow furrows slightly, eyes focusing on the pen in her hand. Finally, she looks up at him.

"What would he be doing?" she asks, her words measured carefully.

"Y'know, helping out up there. Taking care of the horses, overnight camping out in the woods, things like that." He's careful not to include learning to handle a revolver on that list, nor learning to gut fish. "I think it'd really help him."

She eyes him carefully; there's a dangerous hint to her look, but she can tells she's at the very least considering. He fingers the brim of his hat nervously.

"He's asthmatic, you know," she warns, and it sounds like she's _scolding_ him. Hank feels like he ought to blush and look ashamed of himself. "He's thin, bad ankles. Eyesight's a little poor, he reads all the time."

"It's all noted, ma'am," he says gently. "I spend a lot of time with him." And parts of what she says is wrong - Carlton only has runner's-induced asthma, and it's very minor. His ankles are admittedly bad, but he's getting stronger. His eyesight was perfectly fine; he was just forced to read in the dark a lot, but otherwise he could see perfectly. Hank keeps it to himself - he's in no place to argue with the boy's mother. "Honestly, everyone in the town loves him. He'll be great."

Mrs. Lassiter tips her head to the side, eyeing him. "They don't mind him there?"

"'Course not. He's a sweet kid. Brutally honest, though." And he can see where it comes from now. Hank watches her warily as she sighs and tucks a stray hair behind her ear, shifting in her seat.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mendel - Hank," she corrects. "The other kids have been a hassle, and his father is back in town, and this is getting pretty-"

He holds up a hand, and she pauses. "Worry not, Mrs. Lassiter." He offers what he hopes is a warm smile to the woman, who looked like she needed it. "If you ever need him out of your hair for a while, we've got you covered. Over the summer, we can keep an eye on him. I've known the boy for a year or two and I think he'd...really like it, anyway."

Mrs. Lassiter stares at him as if she'd never see anyone like him before. He tries not to get unnerved. There's a tense moment where they sit in silence; then, she stands, gathering up her materials.

"I need some time to think on it," she says shortly, tucking that stray strand of hair back again. Hank steps to the side and moves a chair to let her pass. "I will think on it, though, Mr. Mendel," she relents, "and I'll send Carlton back with an answer this Friday. Deal?"

He smiles, and he sees for a second a flicker of _something _in her stormy eyes. Relief? Happiness? "Sounds perfect to me. Let him know for me, will you? I was going to surprise him."


	3. Gus I

**GUS I**

He never got letters at college unless they were from groupies. His parents occasionally sent him a care package still, but those had steadily tapered off until they stopped altogether. The mail guy knew to give Blackapella's stuff to Diddle, so Gus usually got his fan mail in class the next day.

So when he received a postcard one Thursday night, he was beyond confused.

He looked at the front of the thing first - he could feel that it wasn't heavily written on, as the cardstock didn't feel distorted at all. The picture proudly showed a saturated image of the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, next to the murky banks of the Arkansas River. Gus frowned, examining the picture for a moment. Did he know anyone there? He doubted it. All the Gusters lived in Santa Barbara, and all the people who knew the Gusters lived in Santa Barbara. He flipped it over.

_Hey, Gus!_ a messy, slanted scrawl greeted. _It's been a while, but here I am! The cashier in this gift store looks like the girl you took to homecoming freshman year - remember her? Oh man, bad times. I needed to tell you about this, so I sent you this picturesque card. Cost me a whole five bucks. Missing you! xoxo, Shawn _

The return address told him that one Shawn Spencer had sent this his way.

He stood there shakily, leaning against the doorway of his dorm for support. He was glad Tony was out with Joon that night - he wouldn't know how he'd react to this if they were in the dorm with him. He'd crack a joke and throw it in the trash, probably. But since he was alone, he held the postcard tightly in his hand and slumped onto his bed, staring at the name _Shawn_.

It'd been three years since Shawn had left, at which point Gus had figured he needed to move on. Shawn had been in his life since as long as he could remember; Henry and Maddy had treated him like a son. Winnie and Bill had been more than happy to hear that Shawn had left, but it was devastating at the time. Shawn no longer showed up at his house in the summer with a skateboard and a bad idea. Shawn no longer called his house and asked him to go down to the beach to babe-watch. Shawn was no longer there to keep him updated on all the latest gossip; he always managed to figure it out before the word spread.

Shawn had left without even saying goodbye, and Gus had been forced to move on.

The sense of loss returned in that instant. Gus hadn't wanted to dwell on it at the time, and he didn't want to dwell on it now. Blackapella had a gig in the science commons the next day; grief made him sluggish, and sluggishness made for poor dancing. Gus had new friends, and Shawn had left him, anyway - why should he feel so bad about this?

A sense of longing stirred; Gus wanted to write him. He had an address. Maybe if Shawn was still in Little Rock, someone might be able to get it to him. Gus stood from his bed, suddenly invigorated, and stepped back to his desk, pulling a sheet of paper from his chemistry notebook and setting his pen to the page. There was so much to write, so many months to pack into one letter. Shawn's attention span was always ridiculously short; how long could he make this before Shawn would lose interest? Didn't he want to hear about the time that they'd been apart? Gus wanted to know where Shawn had been and where he'd gone - Shawn knew where _he_ was, it was only fair he heard about Shawn's exploits. He jotted out a _Dear Shawn,_ and then stopped.

A sudden rise of anger choked him. _Shawn had left him!_ His best friend of 18 years and he had just left without a word. Henry said he'd just woke up one day and found him gone. Gus had hoped this would've been like the other incidents where Shawn had ran, but it wasn't. He'd taken his second-hand motorcycle and vanished without an indication of where he was going. Henry had been uncooperative and stiff.

When had the Spencers ever helped him, anyway? Shawn had made him smoke that pack of cigarettes when he was a kid. He had gotten his first B because of Shawn. Henry had hosted a Thanksgiving dinner so disastrous that Gus couldn't go to the Spencer house for an entire six months, and Gus' parents had never forgotten it. Henry's father had given him terrible dating advice; the girl he'd taken to homecoming freshman year, the one Shawn mentioned, was the most popular girl in their grade. Jessica Harvey, he thought her name was - and Henry's father, Grandpa John Spencer, had give him such terrible dating advice that they became the laughing stocks of the entire school. They were never very popular after that. Maddy was admittedly good to him, but Maddy wasn't _technically_ a Spencer, at least not anymore.

Gus crumpled the piece of notebook paper and dunked it into the trash can, putting his head in his hands. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He had already washed his hand of the hellish Spencer clan, why should he get dragged into their nonsense again? Besides, that was the address of the store, not Shawn's residence. It'd never get to him if Gus sent it to that address. He picked up the postcard again and looked at it, scowling.

It was written in cheap black ink. He could see the scribbles in the corner where Shawn had gotten the pen working. At least he was still alive.

In truth, part of Gus was relieved. Shawn remembered him enough to send him a crappy little postcard, and that was more than nothing. Gus was a natural worrier, and having solid proof Shawn was at least doing well enough to write him was reassurance enough. He leaned back in his desk chair and looked at the postcard for a few more moments, imagining Shawn picking one randomly off the shelf just to send. Content with that image, he tucked it in a drawer in his desk, where he kept other important things - it wedged itself between Gus' inhaler and some childhood toys his parents had sent him in one of his care packages. He was just shutting the drawer when Tony and Joon walked in, smelling like the night and fried food.

He greeted them as he normally would, not standing from his desk. He wouldn't forget Shawn, no, and he was sure that he'd eventually come back - but for now, as least he had these guys. Diddle came in moments later, toting some classic board games in his arms.

As they started to set up Monopoly, Gus debated on whether or not he should tell Henry. Figuring Shawn would probably be upset if he did, he pushed it from his mind in time to claim the dog as his player piece before Diddle.

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**a/n;** this story is officially caught up with its twin over at psychfic, so there's that. my exams are over as of today so i should be clear to write more. a special thanks goes here to everyone who reviewed!


	4. Juliet I

**JULIET I**

Juliet learns to fight for everything when she's young - and when she's older, she learns she has to fight for her reputation, as well.

Both sides of their family had lived in Florida forever; the original O'Hara had immigrated to New York but almost immediately come down to Florida, and that was that. Frank is the youngest son of the main O'Hara branch, and like most of his family, his family grew up in Miami. Their mother's side had a similar story, although they were somewhat newer to the city by a generation or so.

And so, Juliet grows in the shadow of her family, mostly her brothers. At least it's shady.

Davie is the oldest, and though Carson is taller and Ewan is stronger, Davie is the biggest personality-wise. He's a prankster, a result of the deadly combination of unusual intelligence, fidgeting hands, and incredible boredom. Carson tries to reign him in, and Ewan sides with whichever brother he feels is more in the right. Juliet, given that she's not the victim of said prank, joins in where she can.

They don't make it easy, of course - they remind Juliet that she's smaller than them every day. It's all teasing, but it can get unbearable. Davie held her things above her head where he knew she couldn't reach; Carson, the most well-intended, was often condescending and sometimes helped Davie in his teasing; and Ewan, though the closest to her age, would always try to get her to do things for him for his own convenience.

Being the youngest and the only daughter kind of sucks, but she grows into it. She fights back.

She learns to climb Davie like a tree when he holds her water bottle out of reach, bruising his arms and chest and legs with barely a second thought. She's wrestled with all her brothers at one point or another, often with results in her favor. Though she often feels guilty, she could easily pressure Carson into stepping back and pampering her by looking a little sad (and this often worked on the other two, too). She learns to talk back to her brothers, and when that fails, she discovers they will back off if she gets their mom involved, as Maryanne tends to side with her daughter.

Still, despite it all, Juliet can't fight them at school, especially when it comes to teachers and her brothers' reputation. All the O'Haras are smart and had decent grades, but teachers either hate or love Juliet's brothers with no in-between. Her biology teacher hated Davie after he covered the floor of his room in little paper cups filled with water one April Fools', so he kept Juliet sitting up front with him the entire year to keep an eye on her. Her sophomore English teacher loved Carson with a passion due to his punctual and perfect essays, even though he often would spend class with his nose in a book. Her gym teacher freshman year had held a grudge against Ewan; he found her brother wicked talented, but he held a grudge because Ewan never joined the wrestling team. This cycle seemed to repeat every year, and there were only a handful of teachers Juliet had that her siblings didn't. She was, frankly, tired of being known as someone's sibling, so she took matters into her own hands.

She joined and led clubs; she took theatre and did sports her brothers never touched. Juliet O'Hara left her mark on her school and in their city, and she made it known that she wasn't just 'one of the O'Hara kids'. And though the shadow cast by her brothers came in handy now and then - as they did scare away quite a few undesirable suitors - Juliet was and is happy being her own person. It's liberating.

The permanent decision of her father to leave the city, however, seems to leave all her accomplishments in the dust.

Frank leaves; Maryanne is unsurprised. She has four kids, three of which are in college or working, and she's still got a life. Still, her passive approach to the situation does little to ward off the gloomy cloud hanging over the O'Hara home - it isn't long before their kitchen table is blanketed in homemade casseroles and bouquets ordered from a floral shop popular in the city. Juliet is the only one home when Frank leaves, and she is the only kid to witness her mother actually cry over this.

Once the worst of the sobs are over, Maryanne picks up her head from her daughter's shoulder and offers a wet smile. "I'm glad you're the one home today," she admits. "I don't know how the boys would react."

Driven now, disgusted by the acts if her father and sick of this town that knows her so well, Juliet wants to get out. The perpetual fog tainting the O'Hara name drives her brothers out too: Davie takes a job up north in New York, where his girlfriend can be closer to the theatres in which she hopes to work; Carson heads out to study history in Scotland, the homeland, taking the first job opportunity that sent him out of the country; Ewan, after training at a military academy, joins the Army, to protect the people, and his first assignment is out in Southeast Asia. Juliet, following Ewan's lead, joins the academy and is shortly on the police force, much to her mother's fear.

The police department, thankfully, doesn't know her or her family. Sure, they recognize the O'Hara name due to her father's line of work - con artisanship - but otherwise, she's in the clear. And she _thrives._ There's nothing to hold her back there, and though she's only a beat cop for a few years, she makes an impression on everyone. It's no surprise when she applies to become a detective, breezing through the DET without a single worry.

Her two oldest brothers are home for a week or so when the offer comes in. The Santa Barbara Police Department all the way over in California is reaching out nationwide to find a new detective to be paired with their head of investigation, and Juliet's squad captain is putting intense on the Miami chief to send her out. Maryanne is justifiably opposed; all her children are gone except Juliet, and she'd be all alone out there in a strange new city. Juliet had been to California during her training (that was there she'd met Scott Seaver), but it was very brief and didn't allow her to really make any connections. They have a brief spat about it - Juliet vaguely remembers spouting off something that sounds childish, like _I'm not a kid anymore, Mom_ or _it's my life too!_, but she eventually gets dragged from the house by her brothers before it can get too bad.

She's still wiping at her tears when Davie sits her down in the sand of the beachfront near their house. Juliet hates crying in front of them, but they're both looking away, perhaps to be polite. She composes herself, swiping under her eyes to see if her eyeliner has smudged (it has), and they sit there until Carson finally speaks.

"I think you should take it."

"Me too," Davie adds, his voice unusually dull. "It's...a good opportunity, if anything. Housing isn't cheap there, but your salary would be a lot better than it'd be here."

Carson is absently drawing a shape in the sand. "Mom's just upset. You remember how she was at Ewan's graduation."

"All tears and sporadic rage," Davie says, as if to refresh her memory. It's unnecessary; Juliet remembers the day vividly. "I think it finally hit her that we're all old. She'll support you no matter what."

"I think her problem is," Juliet finally croaks out, "that she thinks we won't be supporting her if we leave. She's thinking of retiring soon."

The silence that follows is thick with shock. Carson, who puts a tophat on his sand-drawn frog, breathes a heavy sigh, and Davie appropriately spits out a baffled, "What? So early?"

"She's tired of the city right now, I think." Juliet shrugs, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "Too many bad memories. She's going to pass the café onto someone else." It's somewhat of a shock - they'd all spent countless hours in their mother's little café in the years past, and having it under different management would be a jarring change.

"I'm tired of this damn city and all I did was move away," Davie points out, sounding resigned. "I think we're all tired of it."

"Damn straight," chimes Carson. He reaches over and rubs Juliet's back, getting sand all over her tank top. "Take the job, Jules. You never know what'll happen."

She sighs, blowing a stray strand of hair from her face. "It'd be nice to get away from Dad's shadow," she admits. "Yours, too."

"Carson has always been a better wall than a window," Davie says, his voice serious but his eyes twinkling. "Look how damn tall he is, holy shit."

"You're one to talk," Carson shoots back, glaring over at his brother over Juliet's head. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Your ego alone casts a bigger shadow than all of ours."

Davie cracks a crooked grin. "Well, I'm the most handsome. I'd say I'm justified." He pauses. "I guess you're okay, too, Carson. You've got those eyes. Your hair is nice sometimes."

"I'd say you're not too shabby yourself," Carson says, wrinkling up his freckled nose, "but your personality just kills it for me."

"I think you're all forgetting the most beautiful sibling," Juliet interjects, dramatically tossing back her hair. She feels better already, a smile creeping onto her face.

"Ewan?" Davie answers almost immediately, earning a groan from his brother. Juliet laughs; it isn't long before her brothers are arguing heatedly. She suggests a sandcastle-building contest to settle this debate, and they leap into it wholeheartedly. As Juliet helps Carson sculpt his towers, she starts to miss these times spent with her brothers - but it helps keep away the anxiety that accompanies starting a new life, anyway.

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a/n; doing some guesswork when it comes to adult things like housing costs and the structure of police departments, so cut me a little slack.


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